I am much more aware of what goes in to teaching an online course well. Between the Capstone course and my Mentor's class, I learned a lot in a very short period of time.
My first eye-opener was that it is a huge time commitment. In order to answer the students' questions in a timely fashion, the instructor really needs to be online a few times per day. I get lost in the discussions often during our course so I imagine I would do the same with my own class. (if I was able to get them to post...)
My mentor is one of the kindest and most patient people I've ever met. As you read in my case study, she had a student who is consistently late with her work. Donna stays positive and encouraging throughout the entire school year with her. She gives the students hints and nudges when they ask questions so that they can figure out how to solve the problems on their own.
I just can't thank Donna enough for all that she shared with me, taught me, and let me discover on my own.
2. My future goals
With budgetary concerns looming, my district has no plans of allowing me to each a VHS course in the near future. With that in mind, I plan to continue teaching my F2F classes as more of a hybrid course. This year, with the help of all of the BP courses that I've taken, I am using Moodle with two of my classes. I've fallen into a bit of a rut with the types of online activities that I have assigned to my students. With many of the ideas that I have gleaned from my classmates, I hope to make the online portion of my classes a richer, more thoughtful experience for my students. With this said, I will continue to fill up by delicious.com account with the numerous recommendations that I've received over the past few months and will include as many of them as I can. Most immediately, I am planning for their final project. They will use statistical software to complete it and then be required to use one of the Web 2.0 resources to put together a presentation of their findings. I hope to post all of their presentations on our website so others can see the impact that online learning can make on our students.
I am much more aware of what goes in to teaching an online course well. Between the Capstone course and my Mentor's class, I learned a lot in a very short period of time.
My first eye-opener was that it is a huge time commitment. In order to answer the students' questions in a timely fashion, the instructor really needs to be online a few times per day. I get lost in the discussions often during our course so I imagine I would do the same with my own class. (if I was able to get them to post...)
My mentor is one of the kindest and most patient people I've ever met. As you read in my case study, she had a student who is consistently late with her work. Donna stays positive and encouraging throughout the entire school year with her. She gives the students hints and nudges when they ask questions so that they can figure out how to solve the problems on their own.
I just can't thank Donna enough for all that she shared with me, taught me, and let me discover on my own.
2. My future goals
With budgetary concerns looming, my district has no plans of allowing me to each a VHS course in the near future. With that in mind, I plan to continue teaching my F2F classes as more of a hybrid course. This year, with the help of all of the BP courses that I've taken, I am using Moodle with two of my classes. I've fallen into a bit of a rut with the types of online activities that I have assigned to my students. With many of the ideas that I have gleaned from my classmates, I hope to make the online portion of my classes a richer, more thoughtful experience for my students. With this said, I will continue to fill up by delicious.com account with the numerous recommendations that I've received over the past few months and will include as many of them as I can. Most immediately, I am planning for their final project. They will use statistical software to complete it and then be required to use one of the Web 2.0 resources to put together a presentation of their findings. I hope to post all of their presentations on our website so others can see the impact that online learning can make on our students.